Galbadian Firefly
by Bella Ragazza
Summary: Truths and tears somewhere between the night sky and the terra cotta earth of the galbadian plains [quistis/squall]


Galbadian Firefly  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
And he was sitting there; drinking and watching the fireflies flit around the hanging potted plants. It was an atypical Galbadian summer evening, wind arid and dry, whorls of gritty dust rising from the parched terra cotta earth occasionally.  
  
I watched him, slender lines of his neck pulsing with each draught of liquor. Once upon a time I would have watched with different eyes altogether, but now it was just silent appreciation resonating from somewhere in the very depths of my femininity.  
  
'Hey." It was low, and noncommittal, but an impromptu invitation nonetheless. I snatched it greedily, settling in the rickety wooden porch swing suspended from rusty chains. Time and circumstance had brought us to a point where we could look each other in the eyes again without either of us subconsciously cringing. For years it had been more like two steps forward and one step back for me, just when I thought he was coming around something would cause him to clam right back up again. But for now, what I had was plenty.  
  
I struck a match against my boot's side, lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply. He turned toward me slowly; with the closest look to incredulous I'd seen in a long time.  
  
Smirking, I blew two perfect smoke rings his way, gesturing in the direction of his half full bottle of scotch. I too wondered when that little habit had manifested itself, but I guess we've all picked up our vices here and there. "Touché."  
  
For a split second, his face crinkled in a half grin that made him look about eight again, my mind's eye seeing an earlier version perusing the beach eagerly for sand crabs, pail and shovel in tow. Suddenly the clouds scuttled past the moon and in the light of darkness, I was startled.  
  
"Your gloves...?" I murmured in wonder, very much aware of the long, lean fingers extending from hands where knuckles and veins were prominent. The hairs pricked on my neck as he self consciously wriggled those ten perfect appendages for a moment. It was so intimate, almost like seeing someone you've known your whole life completely naked before your eyes.  
  
He cocked his head, clearing his throat and I colored, suddenly needing a big unhealthy lungful of nicotine. I stared vacantly at the peeling veneer on the hotel's side, the glaring neon lights of the strip. Out of my peripherals I saw him run his hands through his silky unruly coif, gearing up to say something. And I'd listen.  
  
  
  
I'd always listen.  
  
  
  
"There was this girl...little girl with a dog by Balamb Harbor last week, right before we took the cruiser out here." He stared at the ground, eyes veiled.  
  
I frowned, and steepled my forefingers under my chin. "And?" I nodded in encouragement.  
  
  
  
"It was big dog...like...like that other one..." He trailed off, and for a moment in time I knew what he was thinking, what I was thinking of. That petite beauty, love for life with her furry companion. Friends and loved ones taken from us years before, we've paid the highest price for war. I often still wondered if he truly loved her, as well as someone like him could love, as orphans we've all struggled with that mystical anomaly and its limitless boundaries.  
  
"She came over to me, and she said 'Oh Mister Leonhart.... would you please pet Muffins?" I laughed out loud at his attempt to imitate the child.  
  
"Let me finish." He looked grave and I waxed apologetic, placing my hand sub consciously on his arm.  
  
"Please do."  
  
He shook his head, tipping back to survey the skies that were peppered so liberally with stars that only a bit of inky blue black poked through here and there. "So, I reach out and pet the thing. And she looks at me Quistis," He turned his dusky grey eyes on me then, and my throat caught with all the emotion that lay within. "She looks at me and she says no, I have to take my gloves off. She asked me how I could feel anything with them on."  
  
I swallowed, and I swear I could hear it echo clear through the mountain ranges above. "Out of the mouths of babes." I mumbled, reeling over the double meaning of the words of a small child.  
  
"His fur was soft...I never felt anything like that." he half smiled again, the slight lines time had placed around his mouth showing through the stubble of yet unshaven facial hair.  
  
"Sometimes...it's good to feel." I whispered sagely, anxiously smoothing wisps of hair from my damp brow. I felt every inch sixteen again, once again caught up in his contrast of jagged exterior and childlike wonder. His magic that kept me by his side for eight years, when our friends had fallen, when she had fallen. When he disappeared from three months after that, I was stumbling, searching, living on coffee and steering the Ragnarok like a madwoman over grass and plains. Always reaching out and missing by an eternal inch. Yet I would never be the one to bridge that gap.  
  
"It wasn't supposed to be like this..." I blurted, and my face burned as he turned to look at me, cocking his brow.  
  
"Whatever happens...is meant to happen. Why do people question things they have no control over? We can't go around playing Hyne and wanting to change the past. Deal with it." He sighed, long and low, and his eyes flickered over my face. I felt caught in a searchlight, a piercing blue-grey light that made my stomach flutter.  
  
Like through a heat-induced haze, I watched his hand tuck a rogue blonde strand behind my ear, straying to trace my jawline and linger. My skin seared where his finger had been. Beautiful hands that were so strong and capable looking stroked that side of my face with a kind of unsure, roughened kind of tenderness I could only equate to him and him alone.  
  
"Don't do anything you'll regret." A ragged, breathy voice I later recognized as my own murmured out into the stillness. A moment frozen, suspended, and I felt a moist mouth kiss the corner of my own, then my lips. I responded fervently, a drowning woman and damned sure he was my oasis on that night. Years of longing, years of quietly tucking my feelings away like they were some neat little package I could sweep under the rug all came to an end in his arms. If one could call nostalgia palatable it was a bittersweet mix of sharp scotch and warm breath, moist and mingling.  
  
Those hands, pure poetry, were roaming through my hair after we parted.  
  
"No regrets?" I breathed, running a hand over the dark fuzz over his cheek  
  
"Not a one." He whispered. "You've always been there, haven't you?" He looked up finally, genuinely confused. "Why? After the way I've treated you, you're too good for me by half."  
  
My answer was forthcoming and without restraint, face wet with tears as I answered the one question that had hung in the air for years. "Only because I wanted to...and I always will. You know that."  
  
He glared at his hands. "Quistis...I can't give you what you need. All that love stuff...I just...can't. Maybe I never will." He warned, sadness and pent-up Squallish feelings making his eyes unusually bright. "Do you plan on sticking around forever?"  
  
Tentatively I ran my hands through all that silky hair I'd never touched before, holding it back so I could glance over his aquiline nose, delicate features and I could've wept all over again. The little boy with a runny nose and torn jeans I'd nurtured had grown into a man, a man that had a world of a burden to carry, and as long as I was able I'd share that load.  
  
"...Yes."  
  
He pressed me to him, and kissed me hard, holding me at arm's length for a moment before releasing. I waited until his footsteps grew dim, climbing the creaky wooden stairs to our suite. One step, two, three and four more...Then I sobbed, long and hard. I cried in the name of uncertainty and sweet agony until the tears refused to come.  
  
Perched on my nose was a firefly, wings a miniscule caress as his body glowed yellow for an instant, before speeding off into the night.  
  
Just bright enough, just enough, to chase away a little of the darkness in my heart. 


End file.
